Detecting for Aztec Gold, Any Recommendations?

[royal1]

Hello all,

I am new to this website and to treasure hunting so any input would be appreciated. I know of a place (somewhere in North America that is a possible "Hot Spot" for buried Aztec/Indian Gold. Many local legends and people speak of it so we shall see.

Question: What equipment would any of you recommend since according to these tales the possible booty could be buried up to 8' ft. or greater below the surface. Also, the terrain is standard soil and dirt mixed with rock and much foliage (greenery; trees, shrubs etc.)

My question stems from #1) the research I have done here on this site and others that not many people give "LRLs" much of if any endorsement on their usefulness and ability to deliver on what is claimed. #2) As far as I know, their are no standard detectors that have such depth range beyond 6' ft. deep.

Any suggestions or help here? Also, the budget factors out anything that a "professional treasure hunting team" would be able to afford.

Thanks in advance

Royal1

 

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[63bkpkr]

Before I started off on this quest I would want to consider the subject and one of the questions near the top of that list would be why would Aztec gold have been left/put/discarded/buried and then I would continue asking more questions from there as well as finding out the answers to the questions. I would do this study/research long before I invested in any equipment.

What ever you choose, I wish you luck on the journey........63bkpkr

 

[royal1]

Thanks for your response. To clarify, this site may not be exactly "Aztec Gold" but it is near a local gold mine that was being exploited by the Spaniards and worked by the local Indians and I happen to personally know people from this area that have told me that it is well-known that the Spaniards were not successful in getting it "All" out and that there were many killed and Gold taken from each other and buried etc. etc.

So let's just say that the above is all pretty accurate info., what would be the best equipment to use in such the above scenario? thanks again.

Royal1

 

[austin]

Bottle of good tequila, a mexican cutie to pour it for you, a comfy chair to sit on outside and watch the sun set and most of all a better understanding of what you are looking for. There is aztec/spanish gold rumored to be buried from down the road from me all the way to California. It will be hit and miss. 63bkpkr basically suggested that you analyze and research the subject before you waste a lot of money on something that may or may not work. If you are dead set on this then find a dowsing person and use them. I don't believe, but others swear by it, so give it a shot. That or ask your mexican cutie because the blood of the Conquistadors and the Aztecs runs through her veins and I promise that someone in her family or someone they know will set you on the right road. That's where the old legends come from. Good luck...

 

[63bkpkr]

Morning Royal 1,
Okay then so there is an old gold mine that you know where it is and there are rumors that ugly stuff went on around the place, theft etc. 1) Where there is a gold mine there is lost gold or at least there was lost gold at one point if someone has not already found it. 2) Rumor has it there was theft of gold and that it was supposedly buried somewhere. The only certain thing here is the old gold mine as if there was stolen gold 'I' would not think the thief would have buried it around the mine but then that is my guess. Austin suggested dowsing rods, two heavy metal rods, ~1/8"-1/4" dia., each with a right angle bend leaving about 5" and 14" to each of the sections with the 5" length being held in the hand. Hold them so the long end is pointing away from your body and walk around the area you suspect might have something and think about what it is you want to find. When the rods 'sense' the object they will bend towards the object and when you are over it the rods will cross. That is all that I know of dowsing rods. Some swear by them, some swear at them.

Simple lost gold: The miners could not see into the rocks they were taking out of the mine so if gold was not obviously on the surface then the rock was put in the tailing pile. Then when the mining was being done, hard rock or placer, gold would just fall to the ground, dirt would cover it and it was lost. Metal detectors can see that gold but detectors have a limited depth range, say 6" to 8". Check out some of the gold prospecting, gold metal detecting recent threads for machine inputs though the Gold Bug Pro seems to be a likely possibility. I own the Whites GMT and though it has a lower frequency than the GB I still find gold with it. Good Luck.....63bkpkr

 

[royal1]

63bkpkr and Austin I thank you for your input and time.

I will do my due diligence and research both the site and equipment/techniques suggested here. I also posted this same thread on another forum "Aztec Gold" and some one suggested a twin box locator with possible ground cancelling capability (if this exist) Do either of you know anything about this equipment? Thanks again.

P.S. A bit more info. People that I know from near this area knows of "old timers" and a bull-dozer operator many years back that have actually found gold coins in old Indian clay jars buried in the ground in some fields and other such terrain.

 

[Frankn]

Look at it this way. You can get it first hand from the locals, but they are many generations removed from the Spanish.
Now for your info. The 2 Box that I have would go down to app. 12' for a car size load of gold. Accurate Locators sells a PI unit called the 2000 that with a 36" mat coil will go down app. 36'. It will set you back a bit over 3 grand. Frank

 

[smokeythecat]

Once having secured the rights to mine the place, your water source (or lack thereof), road access and budget will determine what you can do (as well as local laws).

I doubt a metal detector will be the answer. Might be a lot of nuggets scattered deep, and maybe a vein underground. It all depends on what you have to work with and what the law will permit.

 

[royal1]

Thanks for the input fellas, it all helps me understand everything that I need to consider and look into. Bottom line is that if it were easy to do etc. the treasures would likely already have been extracted.

However, the one advantage I have is that the locals in this particular area are not very shall I say "motivated" to even bother with looking since none of these people would be "up" with the latest in equipment, tools and techniques. They are very simple and are really only concerned with the day-to-day things.

 

[austin]

You have some good ideas presented here and I feel like you are ready to go. See what you can afford and then go for it. You are probably more familiar with that equipment than I am and just trust in your feelings about where to search. Good luck on what I hope will be a very successful hunt. You know people here will support you no matter what...

 

[cudamark]

A two box deep seeker like the White's TM808 might help you. Other methods like ground penetrating radar are much more expensive. After you get permission to hunt the site, I'd prowl around a bit to see if you can determine if the ground has been disturbed sometime in it's history. Doing some test digs in the area should help you determine virgin soil from fill.

 

[smokeythecat]

Hmmm....large dozer taking off 2 feet at a time or ground penetrating radar.

 

[63bkpkr]

Hi Again Royal 1,
I was just checking back and noticed your comment about a dozer having unearthed some "COINS". Coins require smelting, minting, packaging and storage assuming that the coins were made with the gold from the mine. Big assumption! If the coins were Spanish then that time frame goes back quite far and possibly the minting would have been done closer to the mine but maybe not. If the coins were modern (1800's) american coins then that is a different thing entirely, maybe. A lot of holes to fill in here.

Google Earth has some good maps online including satellite images. With the satellite images one can sit in their easy chair and look at the ground around the area of your interest. IF one can see the ground one can possibly make out trails, old building sites, disturbed areas, tailing piles and possibly if they exist one may notice some odd trees (trees that are not like others [palm trees where there are pines and oaks]or were planted in a row or two trees standing directly across from one another to mark an entry way) that may indicate possible human activity. These unique patterns would define places more likely to search than just searching the entire freaking countryside. Any abnormal looking stack of rocks or "feature" or possibly an old bottle laying out in the sun light 'twinkling'. Being out there at the general site one should pay attention for 'Old Tree Cuts' as truly OLD cuts turn black, at least they do here in NorCal in the mountains. You are looking for a 'needle in a haystack' and you need to narrow down the search area somehow and looking at and thinking about what you are looking at in a different way than you've possibly ever thought about 'things' before will help.

Seems to me that to have mine one needs to have a mine camp. It is nice to have water to drink and if that were close to the camp site all the better. One needs to discard of their trash somewhere and if they were orderly folks then there would be a central dump. Taking a dump would also have been needed so somewhere there would have been an established biffy IF they were orderly folks. What does a mine camp look like? Depends on the country. If its flat then the site is flat but it will have some bits of trash scattered here and there - not beer cans or pull tabs think pieces of boots, old leather, hob nails, old glass most likely broken bits of it, shards of a wool blanket (they did not have plastic back then), coat buttons. If the country is hilly then camp is likely to be on the side of a hill so the hill will have small dug outs around it. Each dug out will have been a miners bed site, it will be as long as the miner was tall and they were short back then and I guarantee you there will be trash there and possibly a dump will be off to one side of the camp. These are things you can search for via satellite or look for walking around BUT have a plan to your search. Mark your search pattern with sticks and maybe colorful plastic marking tape (see contractors supplies at home depot they have this tape, get it in red as it can be seen easier than most other colors or if your search are has bright red then get a different color). This is a time to think and just let your mind run wild with possibilities as some of the wildest possibilities thought of now will come back to you during a computer session or while walking the ground.

As an example and on another thread here on Tnet I talked about hiking/exploring(okay wandering aimlessly) through the forest while going up hill, now that's directional. At a sort of large flatish area there were A LOT of OLD Champagne bottles scattered everywhere and broken. Boy somebody really got drunk. At the time I did not think of what this meant. These guys were used to rough coffee, maybe some crude beer or a whiskey back in town, this quantity of Champagne bottles was out in the mining area and they had one heck of a party. Why? They struck it RICH! I am ashamed to tell you that this thought did not occur to me till just a few days ago. Let's see I was there in about 1974. We, me included, need to pay attention to what our eyes are seeing and then to think about what we have seen with a curious mind. Just like a 2 year old, Why, Why, Why....................................and so on.

Okay time for me to take a nap. Hope you have some fun..........63bkpkr

 

[TerryC]

Whenever you're talking "Aztec gold" (or similar), you're talking "artifact - govt intervention". Keep it quiet or expect to give it up. TTC

 

[Dixiegal]

Well if you are serious and money is no object then you need a good LRL and a twobox. We use a custom buit LRL that my fiancee' designed so I don't know much about the retail ones. Google it online and read up on the good ones. We have a White 808 TM which is an excellent two box and good down to at least 10 ft. There are several others in that category also. Without equipment like that cache hunting is really difficult.

 

[royal1]

Everyone, thanks for all the input. I am and will take it all into consideration. Thanks again! To Dixiegal, I was looking into the Whites TM 808. Have you found anything with it that was buried deep? And do you know anything about the Whites Sierra Madre Automatic if it is also a good machine for this type of situation. Whites literature claims that it is specific for deep (depth) treasures or any metal objects the only thing is that it does not discriminate any metal objects since all its power goes to its depth capabilities. Thanks.

 

[Dixiegal]

The 808 is supposed to detect down to 10-12 ft. We have detected with it to about 10 ft. The size of the target and the type of soil have a lot to do with it also. It is really a good unit and you can dial it down to ignore mineralization and hot rocks.

We have a love hate relationship with the Sierra Madre. It will go to about 5ft with the 15 inch coil but it does not discriminate at all and it loves hot rocks like a fat kid loves candy. We use it strictly as a pinpointer to run up and down the walls of a hole or to use at the bottom of a hole where we have already verified a valid target with the 808 or pulse induction.

 

[Mackaydon]

I'm sure you realize the Aztecs (nor any native Americans) didn't mint coins--so an Aztec coin is not a possibility.
Don.....

 

[royal1]

I see, great, this helps me make a decision on the machine to get for this situation. I was also curious about your pulse induction is that an LRL?

Royal

 

[royal1]

To Don: Yes my title is a bit misleading but I'm thinking these were minted locally for the Spanish after they got their hands on the Aztec treasures or they discovered this area was mineral rich and therefore minted coins from this local gold-mine.

Royal